


keep the memories keep your distance

by queenwithoutacrown



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, johnnyswiminthekastle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenwithoutacrown/pseuds/queenwithoutacrown
Summary: "I was so relieved when you told me you weren't there for me. That - that night in the hospital. I thought it was over, I was done."(johnnyswiminthekastle week - day 1: over)





	keep the memories keep your distance

"I was so relieved when you told me you weren't there for me. That - that night in the hospital. I thought it was over, I was done."

She is entirely too wasted to have this conversation with him, to even talk about it at all. But liquid courage is burning so bright, magnesium white. Her eyes look anywhere but at him, because anywhere is better than seeing the confusion it'll cause in his dark eyes.

He's holding his liquor better than her, but he's drinking twice as much as her and they are neck to neck as far as intoxication is concerned and Frank really shouldn't continue this conversation with her. Karen can already imagine the frown on his forehead, his tongue darting out to lick his lips, looking for the right words to ask her.

She shouldn't have said anything. But her bones are so heavy, she's so tired from carrying her secrets like weighs. Throw her into the ocean and she'd sink under their weight, heavy like lead.

With her toes she taps against the floor. The rhythm is off, the feeling cold under her feet. Tonight the shadows talk, whisper ideas into her ear she can't brush aside.

"Why?"

One word, nothing more. Karen looks up. He just sits there - waiting, with that sideways tilt of his head. It's exasperating.

Once when she'd been a little girl attending the reopening of a mall, the magician hired to humour the kids had picked her as his assistant. To this day she still remembered the special feeling of pride. The card tricks the man had shown them had been real magic to her young mind.

His ability to correctly guess the right card had felt like a superpower, somebody looking at her and seeing straight through her soul. Frank makes her feel like that too - in a wholly different way.

"What if I was one of them?" She swallows thickly. "What if you should've come for me too?"

Matt had always seen the saint in her, deceived by the neat clothes and the invisible halo he'd imagined over her head. He'd seen the person he'd yearned to be himself when he was with her, the lawyer who brought justice to the people by obeying the law. But it wasn't that easy and it wasn't her either.

She might have the looks of an angel, but demons were just fallen angels too, those who had discovered the darkness inside them. And hers was blooming like a meadow of flowers in spring, every petal another layer of the secrets eating away at her.

There was only so much hell a person could endure, only so many monster you could withstand before you became one yourself.

It's not like she'd hold it against him. Everything else she's holding him accountable for, but not this. Not when everything about her appearances is so carefully curated. Her demeanour is not a work of art, she's a museum full masterpieces - she'll do whateve it takes to survive.

Frank's hand on her cheek tugs her back to reality. The feel of the callouses on his fingers against her skin is real. Outside the sky starts turning purple. Warmth is flushing her system.

He sees her the way she truly is, past the mask that slips occasionally. He knows and doesn't judge.

"I won't force you to talk about shit you'd rather forget about. But I'll listen if you need me to."

Karen doesn't want to move out of his hold, doesn't want to miss even a second of the fireworks he causes with nothing more than a fleeting touch. The half-empty bottle of whiskey is still sandwiched between them on the couch.

She could use some more now.

Her memories are as crystal clear as the water in a mountain river - there are no jumbled fragments, no parts she's desperately trying to remember. No, she only desperately wants to forget.

She dreams about it, she thinks about it. It colours the way she lives her life, makes her choices. And while hiding her actions is wearing her down little by little, talking about it is not appealing to her. The imbalance is plain as day when she'd had Frank's secrets spread out on the floor in front of her, notes and files and the x-ray. She'd literally seen through his head.

It would be so easy to confess everything right here. But her tongue's tied. The weight, it pulls her down deeper and deeper.

"I have killed," she says, but it's disconnected from her body.

His hand doesn't leave her face. A lifeline.

"Doesn't change anything." He means it. It's all over his face, it's in his eyes. They are the most expressive feature on him, somber yet honest.

She has to look away then, pulls back from him. With clumsy fingers she reaches for the bottle, unscrews the cap and takes a healthy gulp it. The alcohol burns down her esophagus. Warmth rises from her stomach upwards.

"Maybe you should get away from me. I attract danger."

"Yeah, I'm gonna run for my life any second now."

Her lips for a pout, involuntarily. He should take her warning seriously. The last sign, the last yellow light. "I'm serious. All I leave is---," she trails off.

"Is what?"

"Destruction," she laughs bitterly. "Pain. Rivers of blood. The usual, you know."

"And in my free time I'm shitting rainbows."

The image leaves her breathless and she topples forward, her head hitting his shoulder. Her whole body is braced against his, shaking with quiet laughter. If she were sober she'd be humiliated. If she were sober she'd stop touching him.

He rubs over her arms, shoulders, down her back. He's setting her on fire with nothing but his touch.

"What if I sabotage your chance of a happy end?" Her mouth trips over 'sabotage', twisting it into gibberish. The point still stands. What if her monsters came back to haunt him too?

His movements halt, but his hands don't leave her body. The haunting look returns to his eyes, though it's hazy thanks to the alcohol. "I have done some thinking, realized some things. Wanna know?"

She drops her gaze to his lips, intently watching as they move. She nods after an expectant pause.

"Happy endings ain't shit unless they feature you. So we gotta deal with that."  

Her traitorous heart skips a beat in her chest - she knows he can feel it under his palms. Karen drops a kiss to the corner of his mouth, the one that always pulls up whenever she does something that makes him happy. She hopes this does too. 

Under her hands on his chest she feels his heart speed up as well. 

They shouldn't have this conversation, not in this state. But then that's what their relationship with each other has been like straight from the start - a series of roads that shouldn't have been taken and that brought them to this place. To her apartment late in the night or early in the morning however you decided to look at it. Alive and together, drunk and not alright but on the way to a life worth living properly. 

In whiskey veritas, or something like that. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Over - Johnnyswim  
> Tumblr: qqueenwithoutacrown
> 
> Thank you for reading. As always, I love to read your thoughts. <3  
> 


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